Music, perfume and pornography

Manchester band James celebrate the 20th anniversary of one of their most successful albums, Laid, this month. Released in 1993, their fifth studio album would turn out to be their most challenging and was their first made with the technical and experimental wizard producer Brian Eno.

He was a member of Roxy Music and has worked with U2, David Bowie,Talking Heads, Depeche Mode, Grace Jones and James Blake. Eno describes himself as a non-musician and is described as a "sonic landscaper". He uses the studio as a compositional tool, which is the title of one his in-depth essays.

James by this time had a string of successful singles and albums and could have taken a much easier route to recording their most experimental album thus far, although no one could have predicted which way the new recordings would go, apart from Brian Eno of course.

Enlisting one of the most sought after producers in the world is one thing but what lay ahead for James was something that would creatively crush most groups.

First they had to convince the much in demand Eno to produce their new album. This arduous task was left to singer Tim Booth who took to the challenge with some trepidation:

"We had approached Eno to produce our very first album and he was always number one on our list. We were massive Talking Heads fans, who he had previously worked with, and every time he worked with a band he always brought the best out of them, so we thought he's the man to work with."

"We got no response for years until we sent him some demos and I wrote him a letter and one morning out of the blue, he rang me about 9am and we had an hour and half conversation about music, perfume and pornography. Finally he agreed to make our new album, so we had managed to land him after about 12 years."

Working with someone as "out there" as Brian Eno was never going to be straightforward — he could well be from planet Mars.

"He came in and listened to all our appalling demos on cassette. He would listen to them for two hours every day and make precise notes and came up with some really interesting ideas and observations and won our respect in days," beams Booth.
James - Laid (Version 2)

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